


Ghosts (with bones beneath their skin)

by therewasagirl



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Season 2, but not much else, introspective fic, rated for mentions of sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 22:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5683168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therewasagirl/pseuds/therewasagirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>... for so long, mute lips and whispering hands were the only way they dared let their hearts breathe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts (with bones beneath their skin)

>   _When you do not want to experience great pain you withdraw. Emptied of feeling then life becomes ‘unreal.’ Reality is achieved by feeling._

> Anaïs Nin, from [_The Diary of Anais Nin, Vol. 6: 1955-1966_](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FThe-Diary-Anais-Nin-Vol%2Fdp%2F0156260328&t=YjdiNjhkNDBmODFlM2Q2ZmMwZGRhZDc0YTE4NzIwYTY4YmJkNWUxYixrU1IwSXNFOQ%3D%3D) 

Oliver takes deep, even breaths, one after the other as his heart starts to find a calmer rhythm. The cooling sweat cooling sweat on his body is starting to invite a chill but he really can’t bring himself to move again.

He feels drained, but for the first time in a long time, it’s not because he trained until he couldn’t get his body to obey him anymore. This time the lightheadedness feels nice, and not just because he might just be on the verge of passing out ( _though that is not something he would rule out… and the thought comes with a smile as he turns to his side_ ). His body feels looser and more _his_ than it has in a while. Exhaustion like a hot bath pervades him, one that reaches bone-deep and speaks to him only of satisfaction; that one particular kind that comes after really good sex. The kind of sex he hasn’t had in a long time - free and needy. The kind where there is giving in taking and you keep taking for hours. Until you can finally move slow and find steady ground, and still feel need. Until you can’t stand touch because you’re all over a raw nerve, and pleasure is a sweet sting that reaches deep and makes you sob ( _Sara is loud and she throws her head back when she comes; a groan like pain and surrender both ripping up her throat and shaking her legs, pulling at his hair, little pinpricks he feels all along his spine_ )

His joints feel warm and watery and _there_ , a feeling of sharp reality, like he is filling every inch of skin he has, in the way he is supposed to. he doesn’t want to move, he doesn’t want to run. He just wants to _be_ exactly where he is, with exactly who he is, and _feel_ this. 

The lights right above him make little dots appear at the edges of Oliver’s vision, but then again, it might just be because he still feels like he’s floating. Or it might just be the that small smile on Sara’s lips and how warm her eyes look as she turns too, to face him. They’re nose to nose and he breathes in, and Oliver considers passing out right there on the foundry mats, with her hand on his ribs and his skimming up her sweaty back. ( _Light, feathery touches now; they almost seem to make fun of the furious way they’d fucked, earlier. He’d been so starved though. For her, for this. To know those things they used to know about each other, little secrets shared between them, about the other. Things only Sara knew he liked, things he could only ever do with her and enjoy_.) Sara… if there was one person in his life that had always felt inevitable, it was her. And the way they just coming back together.

If he were the kind of person to believe it, he might think that maybe they were just meant to be in each other’s lives, one way or another and that that might just be the closest he would ever come to peace.

He passes a hand over her hair, feels it, soft under his palm ( _he’d wanted to do that since the first moment he was able to look at her and not flinch; look at her in the eye and believe it!_ ). They’ve both slept in worst surfaces and this is by far the best circumstances Oliver would like to close his eyes and open them again, next morning.

Oliver looks back to her eyes and finds her already staring into his. He can find a smile for her easily, even now. And they don’t even need words, not really; they curl around each other and lay there in silence; enjoying the slow touches after the gnawing need – giving each other whatever gentleness is left in them to give.

And even if it’s not much, it doesn’t matter. Oliver and Sara have known each other a long time and through dark places. They both know that steadiness is sometimes more precious by far than tenderness, because they’ve both known what it means to be lost in a storm with no safe haven in sight. They have both left pieces of themselves scattered all over the world – numbness growing like a vine in the hollow places left behind. The depths of those desolated places have taught them to see even the smallest drop of kindness for the miracle it is.

And they show it to each other, because for years now, mute lips and whispering hands were the only ways they dared let their hearts breathe. ( _but do it silently, for god’s sake; and in the dark so that no one may ever see your face when you’re weak._ _you do not expose the soft places you have left to the demons you live with. You guard them and hide them. Keep them, if you must - and god, you_ must _! - but in secret.)_ In the places they have lived, having a heart can kill you. 

And maybe that is the reason why they don’t stop touching. Why even now that words can find a meaning and they can use them, there are no whispers. She could speak, but she doesn’t. He could say let all the words he abandoned in corners fall free around them, but he won’t. They’ve both survived through silence too long to abandon it so easily. But Sara knows they could, if they tried. Together. They could both learn how it feels like to have bones beneath their skin again and be more than ghosts. Have hearts, and veins, and blood meant not for dripping. They could… 

She lifts on her elbow and leans in to kiss him. 

They will ( _and it will hurt, the same way crawling out of atrophy hurts_ ). But not just yet. For now, there is peace in silence, and that too is part of being home.

 

 


End file.
